The disclosures herein relate generally to information handling systems (IHS's) and more particularly to power management in portable IHS's.
As the value and use of information continue to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system (IHS) generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
An important design goal for battery-powered portable IHS's is to make the batteries last as long as possible. This is especially important as the IHS becomes more compact, such as the case with tablet systems and other small IHS's where space for batteries is at a premium. In tablet systems, conventional power management allows the system to enter a low power standby state after a predetermined amount of time has passed since the last time the user provided input to the system. While significant power savings are possible with this timeout feature, further reductions in power consumption are still very desirable.
What is needed is a way to decrease the amount of power that a portable IHS consumes so that battery life can be increased.